Category Archives: health

COBRA premium reduction

2008.11.25 - The physician


I’m going to divert from my usual ramblings and talk about the staggering (to me, at least) implications of the COBRA premium reduction. First of all, what is COBRA? From Wikipedia: “The Consolidated Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act of 1985… is a law passed by the U.S. Congress and signed by President Reagan that, among other things, mandates an insurance program giving some employees the ability to continue health insurance coverage after leaving employment.” Basically it means that if your employer gives you access to health insurance coverage and you use it, then you are eligible to continue in that plan after you quit or get laid off. Usually the employer’s been picking up a chunk of the premium that the employee has to start paying, but it’s still a fairly nice deal for most people as a bridge.

At least it was until the Great Recession hit. Like many other people, I didn’t anticipate being out of work for almost five months now. I knew from day one I’d need COBRA, because until recently you had a 30 day window to opt in or out. If you opted out, you were out - you couldn’t come back to COBRA after you left. Finding independent health insurance is difficult even if you’re healthy; if you are sick, or (like me) you have a family with two small children (i.e. needing lots of medical attention in the form of shots, etc.) it becomes a real struggle to find affordable insurance.

So out of the stimulus act comes the COBRA premium reduction. You are an assistance eligible individual if you are qualified for COBRA and:

  1. Your COBRA period began between September 1, 2008 and December 31, 2009.
  2. You became eligible for COBRA as a result of a covered employee’s involuntary termination of employment in that time period and
  3. You elect COBRA coverage.

Cutting through the legalese, what does that mean? It means that if you qualify for COBRA, the government’s going to pick up 65% of your bill. 65% is a typical employer’s share of the premium payment for current employees, so it likely means that if you’re laid off your medical bills won’t go up much.

Forget politics, and forget whether this is prudent in the long term for America. That’s another post. What this provides is a huge opportunity, and one worth considering seriously. I’ve suddenly been told that I can keep my health insurance, which covers the great majority of my medical expenses, for a reasonable amount (about $400 per month) instead of an unreasonable amount ($1400). The unintended social effect of this may be profound: people like me who might have been otherwise inclined to scurry as fast as we could back to corporate employment for the sake of health care benefits may instead opt into independent contractor status in the short term.

I have to admit that I was anxious to get a “job” with benefits as quickly as I could once I realized my independent contractor lifestyle included an almost $1500 per month bill for health care (for a family of four). It’s not like that $1500 per month includes 100% of my costs, either - $25 copays, pharmacy copays and 10% (or more) shares of medical treatment add up. Children’s immunization shots are pricey. Even minor medical treatment can add hundreds to that premium payment of $1500 per month, but I’m grateful - without insurance the treatments would soar into five figures for even routine medical care.

If health reform becomes a reality, imagine what it would mean if everyone was entitled to $400 per month (or less) health care. Fear of striking out on your own as an entrepreneur would drop drastically. People wouldn’t need to drop health insurance coverage to pay the rent. Families would go to the doctor for routine preventative care in order to avoid later, more serious health problems.

I’m not suggesting that this COBRA premium reduction is a cure-all, because it isn’t. I know quite well that the whole doctor-insurance-company-patient triangle is rotten to the core. Charges are flung about at random in hopes that some will stick and someone will pay them: the insurance company, the government, the individual. But it’s refreshing to see a change in the health care paradigm in this country. As someone who has a (knock on wood) healthy family of four I had started to consider quite seriously dropping health insurance in favor of a catastrophic plan, and I’m glad - for once - that the government is doing something which will hopefully have a long term positive effect. If people are confident that getting laid off won’t mean they can’t afford health insurance, they may be able to go out on their own or hold out for a decent job before settling for a position just for the sake of benefits.

photo credit: a.drian

a simple way to save money on food

The following post originally appeared on I’ve Paid For That Twice Already. A member of the M-Network, she has a couple other sites worth checking out: Hug Twice and Snowflake Revolution. Recently, of course, you remember me mentioning her snowflaking concept as the basis for my wealthstreaming idea.

blueberries


There may be a lot of ways to save money on food, but one of the simplest and best ways to save money is to have a good breakfast. This may sound like a simple thing, but it eludes many people, who rush off to work with a bagel and a coffee. A good breakfast accomplishes a number of important goals:

1. It gives you energy and keeps you alert. Most people realize that there’s a fine line beteen eating too much and too little. Both essentially have the same result - sluggishness. Failing to eat breakfast can cost you the energy that you need after your overnight “fast”. Even the name of the meal, “Break (Your) Fast” implies that you’re sitting down to a meal after fasting all night. You need those calories to reenergize your body and yourself.

2. Many of the tastiest breakfast choices are also healthy for you. As mentioned in #1, eating is important for energy’s sake. What types of food are best for you depend on your individual metabolism, but I think they fall into one of three basic categories:

a. The hearty breakfast: this breakfast is the most dangerous since the temptation to overload on food will be there. Bacon, eggs, toast, hash browns and other heavy foods fall in this category. My advice if you prefer this category is to stick to one type of food or the other, carbs or proteins. Carbs (toast, hash browns) will give you a quick burst of energy but may leave you hungry again later. Proteins (eggs, bacon) may not fill you up as much but will give you energy throughout the morning. Take it easy if you eat these. None of these foods are bad in moderation, but eating a rasher of bacon every day will eventually have some consequences.

b. The convenience breakfast: cereals, grits, oatmeal and other “bowl foods” are an easy way to start your day. Make sure you read serving sizes! A bowl of cereal does not mean a bowl poured up to the rim with flakes. Try measuring out a cup using a serving size measuring cup. It is not a lot of food. If you really love cereal, this breakfast is OK, but it usually won’t be enough for a full day. Try to eat a small amount of these bowl foods along with some fruit. The fruit will add some flavor, provide some vitamins and add to your sense of being full without adding massive amounts of calories.

c. A “non-standard” breakfast. A grapefruit, a bowl of rice, olives, mixed veggies and other “different” breakfasts fall in here. I remember eating cheese, butter and bread with a slice of kielbasa every morning while living in Germany. As an American I thought of it more as a sandwich, but it was a good solid breakfast. Once in a while at home I have what I jokingly refer to as my “Mediterannean Breakfast” - olives, cheese, maybe a slice of bread. There is no need to eat “breakfast food” for breakfast. Eat pasta if you like carbs! Eat some turkey and cottage cheese! Eat a salad! Try to think past eggs and toast.

3. It makes you happier. Let’s face it, if you start the day with a healthy, filling, pleasant breakfast your morning is going to seem more pleasant. I used to be a big fan of grabbing a bagel on the run so I could sleep an extra 15 minutes. Get up a little earlier and fix yourself a nice breakfast. Have it with some tea or coffee. Don’t read the morning news, but open a window or better yet sit on the porch or balcony if you have one. Make breakfast a smooth start to the day instead of a jarring mass of calories jammed down your throat. You’ll be surprised how much more relaxed you’ll feel all day.

4. It saves money. Eating breakfast is a big money-saver. Failing to eat breakfast means that you’re going to be tempted to grab a coffee and a bagel, a Pop-Tart or a power bar around 11 am. Having a filling breakfast means you’ll make it to lunch without being tempted by junk food. Plus, you’ll have more energy, get your work done quicker and leave work earlier. Right?

So think about sitting down for a slow breakfast tomorrow and starting your day off better. In the same way that compound interest just builds and builds, putting a little effort into the beginning of your day can have a big payoff for your afternoon and evening!

Creative Commons License photo credit: the trial

where is Solomon when you need him?

Creative Commons License photo credit: daviddesign

 

Here’s a question for you, to see where you fall on the health/hygiene versus the environment scale. Ladies, sorry but I’ll be referring to a purely male institution so bear with me.

In the office I’m working in we have urinals. They are the old-fashioned kind where you have to yank a lever to flush - no motion detectors, no waterless suction, etc. When you flush, a HUGE amount of water rolls down the drain. And the drainage is so crappy that to get the water clean, you have to hold down the lever.

Here’s the question: which is the best course of action?

A. Hold down that flusher until the water is as clear as Lake Baikal
B. Push the flusher down for one second, just to show you made an effort to anyone else in the bathroom, but effectively leave it unflushed.
C. Walk away and wait until the urinal’s been used by four or five different guys before flushing thoroughly.

I know it’s a disgusting topic but every single day for a year it’s bugged me, and I’ve even said something. For the record, the response was “we plan to install waterless urinals eventually.”

Not if eventually means within the past year, they didn’t.

So which is worse? A bathroom smelling like a Greyhound station or gallons and gallons of clean water being used to flush a fairly small amount of waste down a drain?

fat man and the comfort waistband


Creative Commons License photo credit: lucianvenutian

I have seen some good stuff written about fat man pants. What are “fat man pants”? The idea is simply that when you gain weight, you need to buy new, comfortable pants rather than walk around in your waist-cinching pantaloons. Simple enough. If you have a size 32 waist and you wear size 32, you’ll be comfortable and look fine. If you are size 32 and wear size 34, you’ll look a little puffy, maybe, but still OK. Size 34 man stuffed in size 32? Ouch, and it can get worse - size 36 trying to squeeze into those nice size 32 jeans that fit just a few Coca-Colas ago? Not a pretty sight.

But fat man pants are a big mistake. I recently felt the need to buy some new pants (always need to look presentable in the fashion-conscious accounting field…hah). I was a little bit unnerved to see that my usual size 34s were suddenly a little too tight unless I got the “comfort waistband” - a code phrase for “fat and/or bloated stretchy waistband.” It was not a proud moment for someone who lost 100 pounds.

I got a little bit lazy over the last two years. With a baby boy and a sports injury my weightlifting and running trailed a long way back. A cold winter slowed me down even more. A pregnant wife meant that I felt like I was able to “gain a bit” since hey, she did too! That is bad thinking.

So my fat man pants moment came and passed like this: I got the comfort waistband, but I also took a hard look at my diet. I’ve been down this road before. I cut out bread, pasta, rice and sweets from my diet. I switched from eating toast with cream cheese in the morning to eating an omelette (few carbs, less fat). I started doing pushups and started taking the stairs again.

And you know what? Just like that, my comfort waistband slackened. I haven’t been starving myself, or doing any weird exercises: just restricting the worst of the carbs (I’ll still eat veggies and some fruits) and avoiding the easy way out of taking escalators or elevators and making sure I drink plenty of water.

My point? Weight loss is not difficult - changing your mindset is. People make it difficult by treating it as a massive project; I see people launch into diets with the fervor reserved for political campaigns. Just make a series of gradual changes. Don’t be halfhearted - you ARE making a lifestyle change - but don’t feel that you are entering a “special time” of dieting, at the end of which you will emerge thin and able to eat anything. You will not. You need to change your approach to food and exercise to match your life as it is now, not as it was before the kids or back when you had more free time or before the knees got stiff. Evolve.

And for the record, I have shed 8 pounds by doing nothing more than this.

an unending itch


Imagine your wrist is itching right now. It’s the kind of itch that just has to be scratched - it doesn’t matter what you are doing, because the urge to scratch rises up and blocks your ability to concentrate on almost anything else. I am sure you know this feeling - the sudden intensity of the itch narrows your vision to a tunnel. You stop, you scratch, you resume whatever it was you were doing.

Now imagine that keeps happening. Again and again. You itch at random all over. Your nose itches, you stop and scratch and take ten steps before your knee itches. The aggravation becomes unbearable - every few minutes another urge to scratch, another pulsating itch.

But after a while, a funny thing happens - you are so consumed with scratching and itching that you realize that you can ignore some of the milder itches. Your mind blocks them out, because otherwise you’re just in a haze, waiting for the next tickle on your shoulder or your ear. You realize, hey, I can block these itches out.

Before long, you are blocking out more and more of these urges to itch. After a while, you can ignore almost all of them. Your mind learns how to block bigger and bigger urges, until only the most pressing itches needs scratching. One day, you realize that although you still itch all over, you don’t need to scratch anymore. You have conquered the urge and no longer have a knee-jerk reaction when it strikes.

This is more or less the way you need to approach spending if you’re in debt, or eating if you’re trying to lose weight, or getting over a bad habit of any kind. It may seem like an oversimplification but that’s what it is. Your mind is an amazing tool (but also a dangerous one) but you are its master.

Creative Commons License photo credit: Sugar Pond

a cautionary tale about organic and natural things

teacup One day last week I learned a valuable lesson: just because something is “natural” or “organic” does not mean it is good for you. To the contrary, it can be dangerous in the extreme.

A little background: for a long time, I had high blood pressure. I was on Lisinopril for a while, and eventually I managed to get it under control through changes in my diet, exercising and learning how to control my temper (which has always been extremely bad). When I was running frequently and eating a more-or-less vegetarian diet, I managed to get it well under normal. With a slump in my diet and exercise over the last couple of years - which started out as simply a slowing-down of my heavy workout schedule and recently has turned into an honest-to-God slump - it crept back up a bit, but not too much. At my most recent checkup, it was (after a few readings) 130/85, 128/87, etc. Not great, but certainly nothing to get worried about.

Last week I started feeling crummy and decided to check my blood pressure while waiting at the pharmacy. Boom! My blood pressure had shot WAY up, to 150/100. That’s a desperately high number. Subsequent readings didn’t get much better although some of that is probably thanks to the fact that I got nervous. Very nervous.

So I tried to analyze what I had done in the last 2 months that made it shoot up so far. I’m not exercising as much as I should, but I still do a lot of walking and climbing stairs during my commute. I was eating nothing but raw fruits and vegetables for breakfast and lunch several days a week (occasionally I would have an omelet for breakfast) and maintaining my lifestyle otherwise. I hadn’t taken up snorting glue or anything like that.

So for a couple of headachey days I wondered what was going on while I tried to analyze what had changed. After some real serious consideration I realized a few bad mistakes I had made.

  1. The salad bar at work had added jalapenos. I knew they were pickled (are they cooked? I don’t know) and I love spicy food. I was pouring them on like they were shredded carrots. They are not. I was eating a good fistful of jalapeno slices on my salad every day.
  2. Over the holidays I took a week off and overate, drank a lot of hard liquor - which I seldom do anymore - and didn’t stir much from the house.
  3. I was sleeping a lot less from being busy late in the evenings with the blog.
  4. For some reason, I have felt a lot more internal stress over the last few weeks. It’s probably due to feeling behind on my “global” to-do list. I have big plans for some projects but I don’t feel I’m making enough progress on them.

However, the real problem still eluded me, because these are the types of things which would ramp up blood pressure over time, not overnight. Then I remembered that I was drinking a new kind of organic tea. It tasted wonderful and packed almost as much punch as coffee - sometimes even more. It was flavored with fennel, cardamom, fenugreek, cloves and pepper, but the primary ingredient was St. John’s Wort. I thought “maybe there’s something about that tea”?

Bingo.

Some brief research on the Internet showed me I was right, but this line was the kicker:

There is a risk of hypertension if it is taken with food that contains the natural chemical tyramine, found in beer on tap, red wine, liquors, aged meat and cheese, yeast extract, and soy sauces (link).

I drink two glasses of wine every evening. Over the last couple of weeks, I had something with all of those ingredients. We at aged meat and cheese in abundance over the holidays. We had stuff with soy sauce. I had beer on tap, and red wine. Yeast extract? Probably in something I ate. As I sat there with a headache going down this list, I thought “uh-oh.”

So after reading this article and several others, I quit drinking the St. John’s Wort tea and I can already feel my hypertension fading away. I quit adding jalapenos and I am sleeping and relaxing a bit more, but the main change has been dumping the tea. I plan to go check my blood pressure soon, but I feel much better already. I am back to eating plain salads and drinking white tea and water.

I am not trying to dissuade anyone from taking St. John’s Wort (which can be very helpful for people suffering from depression, for example - although I am not a doctor and you should verify that with someone who is). I just hope that nobody has to discover the hard way like I did that just because something is “organic” automatically means it is “good for you.” I will approach other herbal teas, for example, with a great deal more caution in the future.

(photo credit: australian_overanalyzer)

how to breathe

fishbreathe 

What if I told there is something you could do to feel better in 5 minutes?  No matter what condition you are in now - fit, overweight, tired, at work, exercising - you will feel better almost instantly?  On top of that, what if it helped you sleep at night?  Best of all, you don’t need any special equipment or a gym or anything at all to do it.  I’m talking, of course, about breathing for relaxation.

First of all, if you begin to feel faint you should immediately stop what you are doing and breathe normally.  As you do this more frequently, the feeling should decrease.  And of course if you have any sort of condition (heart problems, asthma, respiratory illness, blood pressure issues, or anything related) you should consult a physician before continuing.

Here are the 5 steps to breathing for relaxation:

Preparation

  • Make sure you are seated comfortably
  • Blow your nose if you need to
  • Relax your face; imagine the system of muscles running below the skin and relax them, one by one
  • Keep your spine straight, feet on the floor
  • Keep your stomach from being "bent in"
  • Put one hand on your stomach, one in your lap

Inhaling

  • Inhale through your nose
  • Breathe in on a count of four
  • Relax your throat
  • Mentally picture air rushing through your lungs, filling them up
  • Feel the inhalation lift your chest and rib cage
  • Visualize the diaphragm pushing up
  • At the end of a count of four, hold your breath momentarily before beginning to exhale

Exhaling

  • Exhale through your mouth
  • Keep your mouth in "U" position - the shape it would be in to say "OOO"
  • Exhaling, feel your belly shrink and your lungs deflate
  • As you exhale, relax your shoulders; if you find this hard to do, lift the corners of your mouth as if you were slightly smiling, but still keep your lips pursed to say U (it sounds tough but it’s not that bad).
  • Breathe out on a count of five

Repeat!

Stop after 3-5 minutes.  You are not trying to meditate or go in a trance or fall asleep!

Ideally you do this in a calm environment, but I do it sitting at a desk at work, on the subway, etc.  It doesn’t have to be obvious.  The critical component is to really focus on the breathing, and do it in a calm and methodical way.  The rhythm is important - when you breathe normally, you probably change the pace and depth of your breathing from minute to minute.  Keep it steady.  Feel your chest moving in and out. 

The whole technique may sound funny but it can work wonders.  If you are trying to control stress, this is a great first step.  There are significantly more sophisticated techniques (yoga has a whole series of exercises called ‘pranayama’) but this is a good quick starter.  Give it a shot.  You’ll feel better rested if you do.

(photo by mikelens)

101 thoughts on losing 100 pounds

I lost a lot of weight a few years ago. I lost even more a couple of years ago, then gained some of it back when we had our first child. It’s not just women who gain weight during pregnancy! However, I have still managed to keep most of it off, and I have learned a lot about weight loss along the way. The Atkins book is where it all started for me. The following list is in no particular order. It’s simply 101 observations I had from losing 100 pounds. I am not a doctor or a nutritionist so take all of this with a grain of salt and discuss any weight loss plans with a professional.

  1. You will never lose weight because someone tells you to. Don’t even bother trying to motivate yourself to lose weight because so-and-so told you that you should. If you do, it won’t work. This may sound trite, but you have to want to do it for yourself. Then, and only then, you’ll succeed.

  2. Everyone has advice on weight loss. Mention you’re trying to lose weight and every single person will have their own 2 cents. Be patient – in most cases people are either looking to help you or help themselves through reinforcement.

  3. Calories, carbs, fat grams and other measures of food content are not as important as the quality and quantity of food that you eat. Each diet has some truth to it, but the secret to weight loss is simple: eat less, exercise more.
  4. Each measure of food content has some benefit, though, and each has some problems. Try not to eliminate anything completely, but a general tip is that your diet probably contains an excessive amount of carbohydrates. Look at that first.
  5. Get help. Research before you dive in. Do not start a diet before talking to a doctor or reading a book. You may be knowledgeable, but there can be weird interactions you’re not familiar with (for example, a low-carb diet gave me some really significant, er, constipation).
  6. If your dietary needs are expensive – for example, if you find that what you buy on a diet costs more than the junk food you were eating – ignore it! You cannot – I repeat, cannot – spend too much money on your health. All the money in the world is useless if you are dead.
  7. Soda has a lot of calories. Diet soda has a lot of sodium. Quitting both of them makes you shed a couple of pounds in days. Do it now. There is no reason for soda in your life as a regular drink. None. Seltzer is just as good, if not better.
  8. If you MUST drink soda, drink regular soda, not diet soda. One regular soda will at least satisfy you and fill you up for a while. Diet sodas just bloat you and fill you with sodium, not to mention aspartame.
  9. It is very difficult to cut high fructose corn syrup out of your diet, but you should. Bread should not normally need sweetener as the #2 ingredient, should it? Read labels.
  10. Once you quit eating junk food, some of it starts to taste pretty awful. Twinkies have a strange metallic taste. Have you looked at the ingredients in the food you eat?
  11. My personal opinion is that even low-calorie sweeteners like Splenda and Nutrasweet are a bad idea for dieters. Eating something sweet fired off weird hunger impulses in my brain, so I found it was easiest to just avoid every single type of sweets other than chewing gum altogether.
  12. Chewing gum, however, serves a lot of purposes when dieting. It keeps your mouth busy, it satisfies cravings for sweets and if you’re a typical dieter it hides the nasty halitosis (bad breath) that dieting causes.
  13. Ricola is an excellent herbal-flavored substitute for chewing gum. If you haven’t ever tried it, give it a try.
  14. If you have an organic foodstore near you, try some organic foods. I never would have looked twice at edmame/tofu mixes but I decided to try one at a local health foods store. It was amazingly good. Today I would rather eat that than potato chips. I wish I had some right now, in fact.
  15. On the other hand, there are some good diet aids that are non-natural, non-organic but still worth looking into. If you love sweet drinks, try Crystal Light, for example. Tea would be better but not everyone can “get into” tea.
  16. Farmer’s markets vegetables will show you why you don’t like vegetables. Once you’ve eaten never-refrigerated straight-from-the-farm tomatoes you’ll realize that the little flavorless round red balls in the supermarket are not really tomatoes. Farmer’s market veggies are a great way to fill up and learn to love veggies all over again.
  17. Almost any roasted vegetable can be made tasty with the right oils, herbs and spices.
  18. Spice has minimal calories, and so do herbs.
  19. Put enough cayenne pepper on anything and it will slow down your eating. It may even kick your metabolism up (albeit a very, very small amount).
  20. Coffee and tea without milk and sugar will taste just as good once you get used to them. Try a little less added stuff every day. Black coffee has 0 calories.
  21. Fried foods are always bad for a dieter. Always. Without exception.
  22. If you only eat foods that you have to cook or prepare, it slows your eating speed down. Buy blocks of cheese and cut your own slices for a sandwich and you will see what I mean.
  23. The exception is raw vegetables. They are very filling, have minimal calories and plenty of other benefits (fiber, vitamins, antioxidants). You can eat as many carrots as you feel like and probably only take in minimal calories.
  24. Water has volume. Drinking water fills you up, at least temporarily - but the nice thing is you can keep drinking it non-stop. You can always add a lemon wedge if you want.
  25. Alcohol has calories. Lots. I like alcohol, too, but it’s 100% unneeded calories.
  26. Some alcoholic beverages, on the other hand, are a lot worse than others. A margarita or a whiskey sour has lots of sugar, calories and carbs – almost any mixed drink is a killer. A glass of wine has some calories and carbs but there are some possible health benefits, as with a glass of beer. And one of my all-time favorites has some calories but no carbs: a dirty martini, shaken, straight up, dry with an olive and a twist. Maybe it doesn’t have so many health benefits as wine or beer, but it’s a nice way to flag the day as “over” and the evening as “beginning.” Plus, it’s hard to chug a martini.
  27. A salad bar is an invitation to disaster. 2000 calories of vegetables are still 2000 calories.
  28. Salad dressing has a lot of calories. Huge amounts, in fact. I love ranch dressing, but I stick with oil and vinegar – lots of vinegar and a little bit of oil. If you eat a salad drowned in dressing you’re probably better off just having some chips.
  29. You hear this often: multiple small meals make you feel much less hungry (eating 6 times a day instead of 3 times per day). I found this generally doesn’t work if you have a 9-to-5 type of job. What you can do fairly easily is eat a hearty breakfast, a raw food snack mid-morning (i.e. fruits or veggies), a largely raw food lunch (i.e. no heavy carbs or meat), a moderate-carb midafternoon snack (shortly before heading home have an energy bar) and then eat what you want for dinner but don’t eat too late. Trying to eat 6 equally-portioned type “meals” was very annoying. Snacking smart made better sense.
  30. Eating carbs within 3 hours of your bedtime is a bad idea - you generally tend to be at your least active late in the evening, and those carbs will not be burned off.
  31. Eating carbs for breakfast is a bad idea. You will be hungry again in an hour. Eggs, cottage cheese, or turkey is better. Fruits are OK, even though they have carbs.
  32. Eating carbs for lunch will make you drowsy in the afternoon, so it is a bad idea.
  33. Carbs are generally a bad idea. Other than natural bread once in a while, maybe rice and some pasta, there’s not a whole lot to say for carbs unless you’re training for the Tour de France. Even then, keep in mind Lance Armstrong gets his carbs from pasta, not from chocolate.
  34. Have you ever actually measured out a single serving of cereal? What constitutes a serving seems like it would not be enough to feed a baby, let alone an adult. However, that should give you something to think about how adults eat.
  35. Your eyes are almost always bigger than your stomach. Eat half of your dinner, wait 5 minutes – sip on some tea or seltzericon or water or whatever – then start eating again. Half the time you won’t want half the food.
  36. If you eat your meals with overweight people, you will eat more. Period.
  37. If you eat your meals with healthy fit people, you may eat less… and save money.
  38. A broad generalization: almost any single-person entrée in the United States is probably about 50% larger than necessary for a normal human meal…at least.
  39. Restaurants don’t care if you eat everything that you are served. Their goal is to fill you up on free breadsticks, extra soda and alcoholic beverages before your entrée comes so you’ll go home happy…and fat. They won’t be there holding your hand when you get that coronary bypass.
  40. Unlearning the “eat because it’s tasty, not because you’re hungry” lesson is hard, but you can do it. Kids do not eat when they are not hungry unless you teach them to.
  41. American corporations want you to be fat. Advertising companies, drug companies, food companies and even the self-help/diet industry need fat people. Healthy people don’t buy weight-loss pills, or new belts, or books on weight loss, or Doritos. This is the worst nightmare of half the corporations in America: a healthy, educated consumer who doesn’t watch TV.
  42. Being fat is not a human’s natural state. If you are overweight and lose weight, you will feel happier. Not just because you are thinner and look better and feel better, but you were intended by nature to be a runner/tree climber/gatherer/builder.
  43. Keeping snacks in the house is just plain dumb. It is bad enough to walk by 50 vending machines at work, but don’t keep snacks lying around at home.
  44. Canned soups are a disaster - salt, calories, preservatives, and not satisfying. No one loses weight eating canned soups.
  45. Putting pictures of fat people from magazines and supermodels or athletes or whatever on your mirror will keep you motivated. Not that we should aspire to that body shape, but the simple fact is that it will keep you motivated.
  46. If you are hungry in the evening before bed eat a slice of cheese. You will sleep better and not wake up ravenous.
  47. The first thing you should take into your body when you wake is water. Not spring water, not flavored water, but filtered water. Cold, and a lot of it. It will kill your appetite right off and wake you up. It will cleanse your system for the day.
  48. Natural colon cleansers may not help you lose weight, but they will make you less hungry. This is purely my opinion, but I think sometimes people eat to mask the lingering toxic effects of having too much gunk in their intestines.
  49. I’m sure you know the feeling – after eating a big pile of salty potato chips you need something sweet “just to mask the salty taste in your mouth.” Down that road madness lies! Never chase food with food. Chase food with water, and lots of it.
  50. Drinking cold water burns more calories than drinking lukewarm water (it lowers your body’s temperature slightly, so your body expends energy to warm it back up).
  51. However, you should learn to enjoy lukewarm water. If you can only drink ice-cold water, you will be restricting your options too much.
  52. You will miss some foods worse than others. When I was doing a low-carb diet, I dreamed of bread. Don’t give in. Saying “just one piece” is the equivalent of a junkie saying, “Just one hit.” Don’t do it.
  53. Butter and oil have a lot of calories but sometimes sneak into food, so keep an eye out.
  54. Dieting is lonely. Dieting around others who are not is torture. Tell your friends and family what you are doing, and do not let them push food on you.
  55. Caffeine is an appetite suppressant. Using a suppressant to diet is like using speed to quit crack. You have to conquer this thing on your own.
  56. Drinking green tea and herbal teas is good for you, and it keeps you feeling full.
  57. You may hate cauliflower. Fine. You will hate dragging your overweight body up the road when you are 60 if you do not eat veggies instead of bonbons more, though.
  58. Small, nibbly foods are a bad idea even when they are healthy. Do not keep anything you can grab by the handful and eat lying around the house - even nuts, fruits and veggies if you like them enough to overeat.
  59. Meat should be viewed as a flavoring, not as a food. Never eat a piece of meat at any one meal bigger than your palm.
  60. There is no particular reason for you to eat beef, pork, lamb, etc. You could get all of the protein you need from poultry and seafood. If you like the taste of red meat, fine, but there is no need for you to eat it.
  61. If you go on a low-carb diet, you will get sick of meat. This is not entirely a bad thing.
  62. Don’t be too sure that being a vegetarian or vegan is a good way to lose weight, either. You can eat nothing but cheese pizza and French fries and call yourself a vegetarian – it’s the quality of the food you eat that’s more important than the label you apply to yourself.
  63. A small handful of nuts (almonds, for example) will keep you going for hours. At the same time, three handfuls of nuts are about 2000 calories.
  64. Milk does not work into any diet plan be it low-fat, low-calorie, low-carb. Avoid it. Soymilk is better for you.
  65. Fruit juice is almost universally too concentrated, even organic/natural fruit juices. Cut it down with water. I usually drink about a 25% juice/75% water mixture now. And even better, use seltzer water for a soda replacement (I quit drinking soda years ago). Straight fruit juice tastes like syrup to me.
  66. It is very, very easy to drink a lot of calories, particularly since most people don’t really think about calories in regards to drinks (except for soda, which you hear about in the media). Which has more calories, 8 ounces of milk or 8 ounces of V8? Beats me. Water has no calories, though.
  67. There is no greater feeling than suddenly discovering you can wear that pair of pants that did not fit you a couple of months ago.
  68. Needing to go buy a new belt because your old one is too big is a close second.
  69. Measure portions. You should never eat more at one sitting than fits on a plate. By plate, I mean a plate, not Thor’s shield.
  70. Getting “checked out” is a real mood-booster, even if you are in a relationship.
  71. Jogging helps you maintain weight loss and fitness. Lifting weights helps you lose weight. However, walking is the best exercise because you can so easily do it any time of the day without any special equipment.
  72. Being happy burns more calories than being depressed.
  73. Stairs are free workout machines. Elevators and escalators are rides.
  74. Jogging is easier when you have good shoes.
  75. Never go to the supermarket on an empty stomach. You will end up buying more than you need and probably at least one thing you should not eat.
  76. Try not to watch too much TV. There are many ads for junk food and whether you pay attention or not there is a lot of unconscious programming going on there.
  77. Another good reason not to drink too much alcohol is that your judgment gets impaired. I am not talking about dancing on the table with a lampshade over your head - I am talking about standing next to the bar grabbing a handful of chex mix.
  78. You don’t wear out shoes as quickly if you weigh less.
  79. The first time you walk by a friend you have not seen in a while and they do not recognize you because you have lost so much weight is an amazingly positive experience.
  80. You can quit wearing black clothes all the time. Black is slimming, but being a healthy weight is slimming-er.
  81. There are some places on your body that will never lose their fat, and there is no point in expecting them too. Even when I lost 100 pounds, jogged 4 miles a day, and lifted weights 3 times a week, my final roll of flab on my gut never went away.
  82. People get angry if you tell them how you lost weight. This was an amazing thing to see in practice. Nobody wants to hear that you did it by watching your food intake and exercising. They want to hear that you wore a special belt or took a pill. Hearing they need to quit drinking Coke really fires some people up.
  83. Gaining weight is incredibly easy for most people, even with a very healthy diet. Once you have wrecked your metabolism by being overweight, it is even easier.
  84. If your knees, back, ankles, shoulders, neck or any other joints hurt and you are overweight, losing weight will very likely help them. My feet used to hurt a lot, and that pain abruptly disappeared when I lost weight.
  85. In the same way, gaining weight is - oddly - going to put more strain on your back and knees than being overweight but holding a steady weight.
  86. If someone takes a picture of you when you are at your peak weight, keep it. Treasure it. Frame it. Use it for motivation. I still have a photo of myself that looks like I ate a McDonald’s. Not a McDonald’s hamburger…an entire McDonald’s building.
  87. I will never forget that when I was over 300 pounds, people would cringe on airplanes when I sat in the seat next to them. The looks you get are awful. Maybe they aren’t fair, but they are there. Avoiding those looks is another benefit of losing weight.
  88. Airplane seats, bus seats, subway seats, even office chairs: for some reason the American seat-building industry thinks all Americans are svelte and trim. Chairs in America need to start being built to accommodate 300 pound people, but nobody wants to admit this fact.
  89. For years, I could not see my feet while standing up. That is a horrible thing to admit, and I’m ashamed to say it even today.
  90. I also couldn’t touch my toes, or tie my shoes without sitting down. Kneeling became very difficult.
  91. Remember that you have only one life to live. A helpful thing for me to remember sometimes is that your average person has around 29,000 days on this earth. I try to think whether I would trade 1 day for potato chips. Would I give up 1 week for a steak, one month for a lifetime of Coca Cola? It may not cost me that much, but I don’t think it’s worth the chance.
  92. If you are afraid that quitting smoking will make you eat more, you should be afraid. However, you should still quit. Using cigarettes as an appetite suppressant is like fumigating your house with poison to get rid of one mouse. Sure, it may work, but at what cost?
  93. Your skin tone will suffer from being overweight. If you are severely overweight, be prepared for wrinkles and sagging skin when you lose weight.
  94. Sex is better if you are fit… and you will probably get more of it, regardless of whether you are married or single.
  95. Diet pills are worthless. I tried one, green tea pills, and although it made me lose some additional weight it was mainly because they made me so dizzy and nauseous I didn’t feel like eating. I could accomplish the same thing by sniffing garbage.
  96. Television will make you hungry. You can’t imagine how many food-related advertisements there are on TV until you start trying to lose weight.
  97. Once you start to lose weight, you’ll wonder why you didn’t do it ten years ago. However, once you’ve lost the weight you’ve meant to lose, you’ll forget that euphoric feeling and be tempted to eat a little bit of junk again. This is the hedonic treadmill in fine, fine form.
  98. Once I lost weight, I was afraid of getting fat again, but not so afraid that I didn’t start justifying eating things I wouldn’t have eaten when I was dieting.
  99. There is not one single thing at Starbucks that you can have on a diet, except black coffee.
  100. Appetizers are almost always the worst, heaviest, most caloric foods on the menu. Stick to entrees.
  101. The failure rate for dieters is high. Even successful dieters – like me – often gain the weight back. I managed to lose 100 pounds, then gain some back, then lose some again. I’ve never come close to gaining the 100 pounds back, but I do put on 20, lose 20. You have to think of it as a battle. You are Custer, and food is the Sioux, Cheyenne and Arapahoe tribes. Food will keep coming and coming and coming. You will lose if you stop fighting it even for a minute. I tell myself this every day: My will is stronger than my urges.

Good luck, and never give up!

 

67 ways to outlive 106 billion people

Unless there is some remarkable advance in medical technology between now and the year 2092, I will not live to see 2093. The oldest known human, Jeanne Calment, died at the age of 122 in 1997. So unless I outlive the longest-lived human, I am doomed. Keep in mind, for me to outlive her would mean that my lifespan would exceed that of the preceding 106+ billion people who have lived on the planet. I don’t like those odds. However, I plan to do my best to beat them.

That’s why, like Khrushchev, I will bury you. I won’t be happy, of course, I’ll feel terrible. But it wasn’t anything I did. In fact, it was a lot of things I didn’t do that made the difference between us. Some of them I had already started to do in 2007. Some of them were things I picked up doing later in my life. Sure, I should have done them sooner, but at least I started doing them eventually. Some of these were things I never did in the first place, which helped me even more. I actually hoped that you would start doing them too. So why will I bury you? Simple… because I:

  • always, always, always wear a seatbelt.
  • don’t eat meat except on rare occasions.
  • always stay positive.
  • am the master of my thoughts. I control them; they never control me.
    never skip breakfast.
  • eat organic foods when available, natural when they aren’t and never touch any sort of artificially created foodstuffs.
  • never add salt to my food.
  • make at least 50% of my diet raw vegetables and fruits.
  • steer clear of drugs.
  • don’t smoke.
  • don’t keep a gun in the house.
  • run at least 3 times a week at a reasonable pace.
  • do moderate weight training.
  • have a positive outlook on life.
  • do not work in a job that I hate. In fact, I love my job.
  • am no longer afraid of money and give it no power over me.
  • made a decision to be free of money, have that goal written down and carry it with me everywhere.
  • treasure my time with my family.
  • take care of my health by making regular visits to the doctor.
  • floss.
  • drink alcohol in moderation.
  • never drink and drive.
  • understand that the root of all suffering was craving.
  • no longer subscribe to militant atheism but instead allowed myself to believe in a gentler agnosticism, and most importantly not to obsess on a battle that’s really not relevant to my life.
  • play with my kids.
  • love my wife without reserve.
  • maintained strong relationships with my extended family.
  • give back to my community.
  • never dwell on the past.
  • never dream too much of the future.
  • stay fully engaged in the present.
  • am grateful
  • do not watch TV.
  • no longer have violent entertainment in my life.
  • never read the news.
  • eliminate toxic materials from my household.
  • never stop learning new things.
  • meditate daily.
  • smile and laugh.
  • spend time outdoors.
  • surround myself with positive people.
  • enjoy reading.
  • dress for comfort.
  • keep a clear and simple todo list.
  • live up to my promises.
  • forget slights against me.
  • remember dates that are important to others.
  • take my vitamins.
  • get plenty of sun.
  • breathe deeply at least once per day.
  • quit drinking caffeine.
  • never drink soda.
  • celebrate holidays with enthusiasm.
  • wake up early.
  • sleep just enough to feel rested.
  • relax.
  • never overeat, but also never skip meals.
  • steer clear of gossip.
  • give to charity.
  • do good deeds.
  • am kind to the elderly.
  • never compromise on my morals.
  • live an ethical life in terms of how I treat my environment and other living things.
  • focus on the distance.
  • travel.
  • don’t waste time on regret.
  • remember that after 2093, I will only exist in memories. The memory of my children will be my immortality.
  • never forget that this is not a trial life, or a starter life, or a dress rehearsal.

one cube of high fructose corn syrup or two?

Like everyone else, I like to add a nice bit of high fructose corn syrup to my morning coffee to sweeten it up a bit. There’s nothing like the taste of fermented cornstarch that’s been mixed with bacteria and genetically modified enzymes to add a little sweetness to my cup of joe. And I definitely love a nice loaf of chemically sweetened bread.

Americans consume more high fructose corn syrup (HFCS) now than sugar. It has become the sweetener of choice, whether the average consumer realizes it or not. Even staples that you wouldn’t consider sweet - such as sandwich bread - are saturated with HFCS. Sodas, juices, processed foods and almost every processed food item you can buy at your local supermarket is loaded with it.

When you are shopping for food, I think about 4 decisions have to be made before you buy something. They are:

  1. Do I find this food enjoyable to eat? Is it tasty?
  2. Is this food good for me and my health?
  3. Can I afford this food?
  4. Is this food easy to prepare?


The critical question becomes in what order you make these decisions. For example, an exotic organic butternut squash soup with truffle shavings and a dollop of cream might pass test 1, maybe test 2, possibly not test 3 and mostly likely not test 4. A Red Baron pizza might pass tests 1, 3 and 4 but be a resounding NO on test 2 for one person, but flunk test 1 for another.

Very few people will be able to go to the supermarket and buy all natural, all fresh and all cheap food. Something usually gives. Your organic apple juice comes from New Zealand. Your all-natural milk costs half again as much as the store brand. A big pile of raw veggies is going to take a lot longer to become soup than a can of Campbell’s Soup.

HFCS, however, is one ingredient that should make the decision process easier. HFCS is a byproduct of corn, a crop that America produces in quantities far greater than any other country on Earth. There is no particular health benefit to production of HFCS, and its production is actually far more complex than that of regular sugar. It is all created through a complicated process of fermenting, adding bacteria and enzymes and chemical treatments in one of 16 different plants around the US. While the debate over its health costs are not definitive, studies have shown that HFCS does not trigger the same “full” reflex as sugar, meaning you will eat more HFCS than you would an equivalent amount of sugar. Rats fed large amounts of HFCS develop terrible health problems. Shrinking of the testicles appeal to anyone?

If you are old enough to remember what sodas tasted like pre-HFCS, you may recall that sodas didn’t taste the same 30 years ago as they do today. If you travel to Europe or Latin America, you will find that HFCS is practically non-existent in their foods. Mexican Coca-Cola, which is sometimes available in New York, has a significantly sweeter, smoother and more pleasant taste than American sodas.

I challenge anyone who is even slightly concerned about HFCS to try this simple test. Buy two loaves of bread, one with HFCS as the second or third ingredient (this is probably 90% of the bread in your local market!) and one without (this may be hard to find). The bread with HFCS will be mushier, less flavorful and have more calories. However, it will be cheaper in all likelihood.

So when you are shopping and trying to save money - and I doubt many people don’t try to shop without being aware of the prices of things - stop for a minute and consider what the long term effect might be of eating a product that is very sweet, heavily chemically treated, doesn’t actually taste that great and doesn’t satisfy your brain’s “appetite switch.” You might eat a bit more of it. You might get fatter, or develop diabetes, and how much will that cost you?

It’s fairly difficult to eliminate HFCS from your diet. It is omnipresent. However, it is possible and you will notice a difference in the quality and amount of food you eat if you do quit. You’ll be satisfied with less and enjoy it more, and in the end that will save you money too. Consider quitting cold turkey from high fructose corn syrup. You won’t be sorry you did.

I will not eat green eggs and ham

Over at MSN Money there’s an interesting article on saving titled “Go Vegetarian to Save Money”. Go read it – there’s another article at MSN on the same topic here. There’s a compelling case to be made that a vegetarian diet is superior, including reasons beyond those listed in the article.

  • Vegetarianism tends to be healthier. Vegetarianism lowers your risk of heart disease, cancer and dementia. It can also help you lose weight. Of course, the benefits of a vegetarian diet are still dependent on the actions of the individual. Eating cheese pizzas all day makes you a vegetarian, but it won’t make you healthier.
  • It’s better for the environment. “Replacing one 3.5-ounce serving of beef, one egg, and a 1-ounce serving of cheese each day with a mix of vegetables, fruit, beans, and whole grains would spare the need for 1.8 acres of cropland, 40 pounds of fertilizer, and 3 ounces of pesticides each year. It also would mean dumping 11,400 fewer pounds of animal manure into the environment each year.” However, you have to consider other factors. If you eat exotic imported nuts from Africa and California oranges, a lot of pollution is being created moving those items around the world.
  • Vegetarianism is cheaper. As pointed out in the article, you can save money by avoiding meat somewhat or altogether.
  • It’s less cruel. (Flash file)

One of the problems we have had as we reduce our meat consumption at home has been that in the past we tried to buy organic fruits and vegetables whenever possible. As anyone who has spent time in Whole Foods or Garden of Eden knows, this can be nightmarishly expensive. We also prefer natural or organic meats. Free-range organic-fed chicken is tasty, but it is terribly expensive.

So in this shorter-than-usual post, I will just pose the question: at what point do you eliminate a food from your diet, and what makes you do it? When we all learned in the 80s that tuna “killed dolphins” we ran shrieking away from it. When people hear about mad cow disease, that’s sometimes the tipping point to get them to quit eating beef. I quit eating my favorite brand of hummus when it hit $4 per small container in our local supermarket. I decided very arbitrarily to quit eating 99% of the pork products out there when I saw a brief little piece in the New York Times on what, exactly, a pig’s life is like pre-slaughter.

What are the “tipping points” that cause you to give up a type of food? Financial? Health? Environmental?

aging gently

As I spent some time in an assisted living facility last week I thought about aging and money. Here are the two most important concepts I came away with:

  1. At the end of your life, money and things are not important. Having friends and family and a rich store of memories will be more important than whether you ever owned a boat. This is the Hallmark Card thought that people bring up when talking about old age and death.
  2. That having been said, the end of your life is a lot nicer if you have some money. I’m not talking about nicer in the sense of having HBO. I’m talking about having a nurse who’s going to change your bedpan when you ring the bell rather than being in an institution where they let you sit in your own crap for three hours because they are understaffed.

I really cringe from time to time thinking about how much money I am hoarding for some far-off "retirement". Unless my savings rate and return rate spike up dramatically in the next 10 years I’ll still work until my mid-60s regardless of what I do now. And of course I could get hit by the mythical bus any day, rendering much of my planning for my sunset years irrelevant (except of course in that these savings would help out my family, but I have life insurance for that and frankly even with savings and insurance Bubelah would have to go back to work). So the ugly little thought creeps into my mind that maybe I should be enjoying this money today. Not buying the latest plasma TV, necessarily, but spending it on a fancy private education for my son, or on illuminating vacations (pyramids, Great Wall, safaris) or on a beach home in Florida. With the amount of money my wife and I save it wouldn’t be an insignificant amount of extra money if we stopped saving tomorrow. That extra money would alter our lifestyle.

However, I think about what I saw last week and realized that if you don’t have lots and lots of money, things can go south quickly. I saw a very nice assisted living complex, filled with relatively happy looking seniors. There was a very pleasant restaurant-style cafeteria, activities and a very pleasant physical complex with bright halls, cheery rooms and clean surroundings. All of this comes at a price; my best understanding was that it runs more than $5000 a month in an area of the country where that is no small amount. To put that in perspective, to generate $5000 per month in net income would require a nest egg of $1,300,000 earning 6% interest (no sure thing unless you want lots of risk). “That’s not so bad”, you think. That means $5000 for basic care. No drug co-payments, no hospital stays, no extra assistant care - all of that is extra. “That’s fine, Medicare will cover that,” you say. I hope you are right, after all of your “fun” 60s and 70s and giving gifts to the grandkids and traveling to Spain and whatnot, just for a place to live. $1,300,000 in the bank when you are 80, for the sake of argument.

All of that might not even be that terrible except:

  1. One or both of us might live far longer due to advances in medicine. Already people are living longer and longer due to artificial hearts, drugs, surgery, you name it. If I live to be 105, or 20 years past what I expect, won’t I run out of money? What happens when I’m 97 and the bank account is tapped out? I hope my son or other potential future children could help, but I may need care past what they could easily provide at home. What then? What if something even more ridiculous happens in the next 20 years (a cure for cancer, for example) and people start living to 120? 130?
  2. One or both of us might have health issues, draining our savings. This might be as simple as needing additional nursing care for non-life-threatening conditions, or as awful as a long lingering illness.

So let’s assume that $2 million (a random large number) would last for 30 years after I reach 65 (remember, 20-25 years for me and 30-35 for Bubelah). How is it even remotely possible to think of saving for 40 years, 50 years of quality living? Is it possible? I sometimes doubt it, particularly considering costs may dip at first when we’re in our 60s and in decent health (assuming we don’t take that super-luxury cruise to Europe), but will probably spike back up again as health problems mount. Could you ever start drawing down on principal to boost your monthly income? Even if you don’t, the principal will rot away with inflation. 40 or 50 years is a long time to hope for $1,300,000+ to carry you. You would have to draw the principle down and hope that the month you drew out the last $18,000 (inflation, remember?) was the month you died.

I don’t know what the answer is. Maybe the answer is spend it while you’re young and hope that this country does something about elder care before you get there yourself…

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